The St. Johns herald., 1887-05-12
WANTED. A NOVELTY.
. There I.So New Thing Under the Sum-

There Js NO New Tntng under fne Suu'
 We unite in hailing the electric tele- graph as the wonder of the age but the idea Is as old as 1637, at least Scher- wentcr in that year explains how two individuals can communicate with each other ty means of the magnetic needle.
 n1746 Le Monnier, by series of ex- peiments In the Royal Gardens in Parl {. showed how electricity could be trans mitted through iron wire $50 fathoms in length, and in l753 there was remark able description of the electric telegraph fin the Scots Magazine, in an article entitled An Expeditions Method of Conveying Intelligence. by Charles Marshall. h 1774 we find an electric telegraph in full working order, and capable of transmitting messages.
 This was the invention Of George Louis Lesage, of Geneva, who announced it i'll 1760. His instrument was comp sed of twenty-four metallic wires, separate from each other and inclosed ln s nnn- conducting substance. Each wire ended in a stalk, mounted with tile ball of elder wood suspended by silk thread. When stream of electricity, no matter how slight. was sent through the wir,, the elder ball at the end was repelled, such movement designating one letter of the alphabet.
 A few gears later, in Arthur Youngs Travels in France, we real of a sim far machine, the invention of II. Lomond, of Paris.
 Photography Is only 8 skillful devel- opment of U very old idea. Sun-paint- ing by the daguerreotype was known to Leonardo da linci in tho fifteenth cen- tury. The art then lay in oblivion till I76O, when 1t was clearly indicated in 0 book published in Paris, entitled "Gip- hantie," written by Tiphanie de Ia Roche.
 Josiah wedewood, Sir Humphry ravy, and James Watt made experiments on the action of light upon nitrate Of liver at the beginning of the present ce"tury, and many years after, among the old hou ehold lumber of Watts partner, Matthew Boulton, was found represen tation Of the old premis. s at Soho' on silvered copper plate, apparently taKen by some such process. |,
 We often hear the Thames tunnel cited as an example of the wonderful genius of modern engineering, but the tunnel under the Euphrates at ancient Babylon was equally wonderful, and that under the wide mouth of the harbor at Marseilles was a greater enterprise, while both the. ancient works were as skillfully ex- ecuted as the modern.
 In a museum at Venice there rre numerous firearms of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries that forestall many of cur most recentimprovements. such as revolving pistols, rified muskets. and breech-loadlng cannon.
 Steam locomotion by sea and land had always been a dream of scientists. As early as l643 Blasco de Garay triel to accomplish 1t in the hsrbor of Barcelona. Denis Papin made similar attempt at Cassel m l7O7. But 1t was not till the problem of the steam engine had been solved by Watt that the idea of steam locomotlon could be put in practice.
 Though Denis Papin was unsuccessful in his attempt to effect steam como ton, to him Is due the credit of having first thrown out the Idea of atmospheric locomotion. and another Frenchman, Gauthey, in 1762. projected method of conveying parcels and merchandise similar to the now familiar pneumatic tube.
 The reaping-machIne is an old lnven. ton. Barnabe GooGe, in Q book trans lated om the German, entitled "The Whole Arto of Husbandrie," published in 1877. speaks of 1t as worn-out in- vention-a thing "which was WOO to be used in France. The evice vas lowe kinde of carre, with couple of wheeles, and the frunt armed with sharp syckles, whiche, forced by the beaste through the corne. did cut down al be- forc IL. This tricke might be used in lev.ll and champion countr.ys, but with us it wolde make but til-tavored woorke
 Gun; owder was known to the Romans. though they only used 1t for fireworks. and the secret of the terrible and destructive Greek fire has cen lost altogether.
 Suspension bridges were known in China for centuries, and the people of the same country used coal gas regularly or lighting purposes long before we did.